Here we found Anne, very white and shaky, with the pantry table
and two chairs piled against the door of the kitchen slide, and
clutching the chamois-skin bag that held her jewels. She had a
bottle of burgundy open beside her, and was pouring herself a
glass with shaking hands when we appeared. She was furious at
Jim.
"I very nearly fainted," she said hysterically. "I might have
been murdered, and no one would have cared. I wish they would
stop that chopping, I'm so nervous I could scream."
Jim took the Burgundy from her with one hand and pointed the
police to the barricaded door with the other.
"That is the door to the dumb-waiter shaft," he said. "The lower
one is fastened on the inside, in some manner. The noises
commenced about eleven o'clock, while Mr. Brown was on guard.
There were scraping sounds first, and later the sound of a
falling body. He roused Mr. Reed and myself, but when we examined
the shaft everything was quiet, and dark. We tried lowering a
candle on a string, but--it was extinguished from below."
The reporters were busily removing the table and chairs from the
door.
"If you have a rope handy," one of them said, "I will go down the
shaft."
(Dal says that all reporters should have been policemen, and that
all policemen are natural newsgatherers.)
"The cage appears to be stuck, half-way between the floors," Jim
said.
Pages:
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225